161–170 of 220 posts
If you work on larger features that require quiet time, then a real-time chatting app can be quite annoying. My team tends to release lots of small features very often, so fast communication is important.
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Take a look at the Channel List under Preferences -> Advanced to only show unreads, then combine that with individually muted channels. That's how I have most channels set up so I can passively aware of activity with badges.
The problem is that instead of having to check every single one of my dozens of muted channels once or twice a day, I'd like them to be highlighted in the sidebar (but not badged!) when unread. Plus it'd be nice to still get notifications of mentions and highlight words in said channels.
As to mentions and highlight words, I don't think there's a solution for that for muted channels. When I developed this technique I would have liked targetted mentions, but not @here or @channel, which, at the time was indistinguishable. However Slack added a per-channel option to Ignore notifications for @channel & @here, which means I might try the above technique without muting the channel.
Play around with it, you might find the settings can be combined in an optimal way once you understand how they all interact.
A small, but impactful design choice we made in creating Twist was to leave out the online presence indicator. I imagine you could address this in Slack by just having everyone set themselves to 'Away' by default. One of the things that I've found useful in Slack is turning off the "Someone is typing" message (the option is in the Display Options). I used to wait for someone to post if I knew a message was coming. No…
I've also noticed that being in the dark about some things regarding real-time communication makes me happier. E.g. I disabled WhatsApp's "read" and "last online" indicators not because I don't want others to see mine but because they are useless information that only made me wonder about other peoples intentions.
When somebody has read the message and didn't respond, it doesn't mean that they never will but that they were otherwise busy. Just knowing about that didn't keep me from wondering, only turning it completely off did. If I was able to turn off the "typing..." and "online" status, I would, too.
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> old-school forums Most open source projects still use mailing lists, which are even better than forums in that everyone can read and write emails in whatever client they prefer. And yes, it's far better than chat for serious discussions, with a global group of people. You don't want to exclude the Americans from important decisions when everyone in Europe is awake and on the chat in the morning, and vice versa. I t…
Mailing lists are close to perfect; one missing feature from mailing list software is the ability to easily reach back in time to discover threads from before one joined a project. For quick questions and discussions, irc is hard to beat.
I must be missing something, I've always found mailing list UIs frustrating to navigate and explore. Does anyone maybe have a primer on how to get the most out mailing lists for someone not already intricately familiar with them?
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> old-school forums Most open source projects still use mailing lists, which are even better than forums in that everyone can read and write emails in whatever client they prefer. And yes, it's far better than chat for serious discussions, with a global group of people. You don't want to exclude the Americans from important decisions when everyone in Europe is awake and on the chat in the morning, and vice versa. I t…
Mailing lists are close to perfect; one missing feature from mailing list software is the ability to easily reach back in time to discover threads from before one joined a project. For quick questions and discussions, irc is hard to beat.
And in practice, at large companies, forced expiration is used to control email storage space, in part because of the duplication.
So at very minimum, you want something threaded like email, but stored in a single location, so storage/duplication/deletion aren't problems, and indexed searching is available. This also allows things like tagging someone into a thread after it already started.
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Event: Your boss shares an article on @channel at Slack. Reaction:: Since our boss has posted it and you don't want to be seemed a second rung player and the one who is NOT on her/his toes, you jump on the keyboard and first "Like/Thumbs Up" that post and then comment for the heck of it, something like "Wow", Amazing", "Insightful". Then you look over your back ie, to see how many others have commented before you, an…
This seems like the hallmark of a pre-dysfunctional workplace. None of the engineering managers I've worked with wouldn't expect their engineers to drop what they're doing and look at an article. All but one were too busy themselves to be doing that sort of thing. None would want to jeopardize their schedules by distracting their engineers. Most managers aren't trying to be friends with their engineers; they have the…
On Email always worked like, it was email, for those it mattered, they responded and rest carried on with their work.
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Event: Your boss shares an article on @channel at Slack. Reaction:: Since our boss has posted it and you don't want to be seemed a second rung player and the one who is NOT on her/his toes, you jump on the keyboard and first "Like/Thumbs Up" that post and then comment for the heck of it, something like "Wow", Amazing", "Insightful". Then you look over your back ie, to see how many others have commented before you, an…
So the boss throws out the article on a slack channel without any context? Sounds to me like if you want +1's that's what you do. If you want reasoned discussion, there should be an ask from the boss on the channel-toss even if it is a @TheRealmccoy call-out on the posting.
At hindsight, if you look at a Slack channel, so much information would be found redundant.
It is there just because it is so easy to put out there, because of the intrinsic nature of the medium, and it is so because, most of it is reaction.
Like, oh this is nice, let's put it out on Slack.
While writing an email,when the communication is being initiated, there is sufficient pause built in the system, to let one ponder, is this really worth it?
Email is not fool proof either of this syndrome, but far better.
There is a reason Jedi masters, powerful witches and wizards, ancient wise men and women, and so on tend to be found on isolated mountains, in remote caves, wandering in far away forests, and the like instead of living in the middle of the village with their doors open.
No, I’m not taking a vacation. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I’m getting a hotel room in a state where I don’t know anyone, so I can do a bunch of research with no distractions.
I bought a new computer specifically for this purpose - A Dolch portable pentium-II system. The significant thing is that it has full length PCI slots, so I was able to put an Evans & Sutherland OpenGL accelerator in it (not enough room for an intergraph Realizm, though), and still drive the internal LCD screen. It works out pretty well, but I’m sure there will be conventional laptops with good 3D acceleration available later this year.
This will be an interesting experiment for me. I have always wondered how much of my time that isn’t at peak productivity is a necessary rest break, and how much of it is just wasted.
The biggest drawback of a real time communication tool like Slack is the React v/s Respond conundrum. Productive communication and teamwork requires that we respond, rather than react. What happens specifically with tools like Slack which start off as demi-official tool and then transcend to official is that, one gets into the habit of reacting, instead of responding. I have personally seen this "fastest finger first…
"I have personally seen this "fastest finger first" played, almost always." There's your problem - typing first. Put everyone on a voice/video collab stream. Now at least you get to hear what's being suggested first like a real office, and respond without having to move away from your work window. "That idea is nonsense, it won't work within our framework guidelines for x reasons." Bam no waiting for people to read w…
The problem is that there is no inherent pause built in the system.
It's boon is its bane!